"Phillip Francis Nowlan - Buck Rogers 01 - Armageddon 2419" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nowlan Philip Francis)

forward for generations, when they would he srrong enough to burst from the green chrysalis of the.
forests, soar into the upper air lanes and destroy the Hans.
At the time I awoke, the "Day of Hope" was almost at hand. I shall not attempt to set forth a detailed
history of the Second War of Independence, for that has been recorded already by better historians that
I am. Instead I shall confine myself largely to the part I was fortunate enough to play in this struggle and in
the events leading up to it.
It all resulted from my interest in radioactive gases, During the latter part of 1927 my company, the
Americaa Radioactive Gas Corporation, had been keeping me busy investigating reports of unusual
phenomena observed in certain abandoned coal mines near the Wyoming Valley, in Pennsylvania.
With two assistants and a complete equipment of scientific instruments, I began the exploration of a
deserted working in a mountainous district, where several weeeks before, a number of mining engineers
had reported traces of carnotite (A hydrovanadate of uranium, and other metals; then used as a aource of
radium compounds. -ED.) and what they believed to be radioactive gases. Their report was not without
foundation, it was apar parent from the outset, for in our examination of the upper levels of the mine, our
instruments indicated a vigorous radio activity.
On the morning of December 15th, we descended to one of the lowest levels. To our surprise, we
found no water there. Obviously it had drained off through some break in the strata. We noticed too
that the rock in the side walls of the shaft was soft, evidently due to the radioactivity, and pieces
crumbled under foot rather easily. We made our way cautiously down the shaft, when suddenly the
rotted timbers above us gave way.
I jumped ahead, barely escaping the avalanche of coal and soft rock; my companions, who were
several paces behind me, were buried under it, and undoubtedly met instant death.
I was trapped. Return was impossible. With my electric torch I explored the shaft to its end, but could
find no other way out. The air became increasingly difRcult to breathe, probably from the rapid
accumulation of the radioactive gas. In a little while my senses reeled and I lost consciousness.
When I awoke, there was a cool and refreshing circulation of air in the shaft. I had not thought that I had
been unconscious more than a few hours, although it seems that the radioactive gas had kept me in a
state of suspended animation for something like 500 years. My awakening, I figured out later, had been
due to some shifting of the strata which reopened the shaft and cleared the atmosphere in the working.
This must have been the case, for I was able to struggle back up the shaft over a pile Of debris, and
stagger up the long incline to the mouth of the mine, where an entirely different world, overgrown with a
vast forest and no visible sign of human habitation, met my eyes.
I shall pass over the days of mental agony that followed in my attempt to grasp the meaning of it all.
There were times when I felt that I was on the verge of insanity. I roamed the unfamiliar forest like a lost
souL Had it not been for the necessity of improvising traps and crude clubs with which to slay my food, I
believe I should have gone mad.
Suffice it to say, however, that I survived this psychic crisis. I shall begin my narrative proper with my first
contact with Americans of the year 2419 A.D.


FLOATING MEN

My first glimpse of a human being of the 25th Century was obtained through a portion of woodland
where the trees were thinly scattered, with a dense forest beyond.
I had been wandering along aimlessly, and hopelessly, musing over my strange fate, when I noticed a
figure that cautiously backed out of the dense growth across the glade. I was about to call out joyfully,
but there was something furtive about the figure that prevented me. The boy's attention (for it seemed
to be a lad of fifteen or sixteen) was centered tensely on the heavy growth of the trees from which he
had just emerged.
He was clad in rather tight-fitting garments entirely of green, and wore a helmet-like cap of the same